In early 1941, Waldheim was drafted into the Wehrmacht and posted to the Eastern Front where he served as a squad leader. In December, he was wounded but returned to service in 1942. His service in the Wehrmacht from 1942 to 1945 was the subject of international review in 1985 and 1986. In his 1985 autobiography, he stated that he was discharged from further service at the front and, for the remainder of the war, finished his law degree at the University of Vienna, in addition to marrying in 1944.[4] After publication, documents and witnesses came to light that revealed Waldheim’s military service continued until 1945, during which time he rose to the rank of Oberleutnant.

By 1943, Waldheim was serving in the capacity of an aide-de-camp in Army Group E which was headed by General Alexander Löhr.[6] In 1986, Waldheim said that he had served only as an interpreter and a clerk and had no knowledge either of reprisals against local Serb civilians or of massacres in neighboring provinces of Yugoslavia. He said that he had known about some of the things that had happened, and had been horrified, but could not see what else he could have done.[4]

Much historical interest has centered on Waldheim's role in Operation Kozara in 1942.[7] According to one post-war investigator, prisoners were routinely shot within only a few hundred meters (yards) of Waldheim's office,[8] and just 35 kilometres (22 mi) away at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Waldheim later stated that "he did not know about the murder of civilians there".[8]

Waldheim's name appears on the Wehrmacht's "honor list" of those responsible for the militarily successful operation. The Nazi puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, awarded Waldheim the Medal of the Crown of King Zvonimir in silver with an oak branches cluster.[9] Decades later, during the lobbying for his election as U.N. Secretary General, Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, who had led anti-German forces during the war, awarded Waldheim one of the highest Yugoslav orders.[10]

Waldheim denied that he knew war crimes were taking place in Bosnia at the height of the battles between the Nazis and Tito's partisans in 1943.[11] According to Eli Rosenbaum, in 1944, Waldheim reviewed and approved a packet of anti-Semiticpropaganda leaflets to be dropped behind Soviet lines, one of which ended: "Enough of the Jewish war, kill the Jews, come over."[12]

In 1945, Waldheim surrendered to British forces in Carinthia, at which point he said he had fled his command post within Army Group E, where he was serving with General Löhr, who was seeking a special deal with the British.

After losing the Austrian presidential election, Waldheim ran for Secretary-General of the United Nations in the 1971 selection. Waldheim was supported by the Soviet Union and led the first two rounds of voting. However, he was opposed by China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Waldheim won an accidental victory in the third round of voting when the three permanent members failed to coordinate their vetoes and all abstained.[13] Waldheim succeeded U Thant as United Nations Secretary-General in 1972.

On 11 September 1972, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin sent a telegram to Waldheim, copies of which went to Yasser Arafat and Golda Meir. In the telegram, Amin "applauded the massacre of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich and said Germany was the most appropriate locale for this because it was where Hitler burned more than six million Jews."[15] Amin also called "to expel Israel from the United Nations and to send all the Israelis to Britain, which bore the guilt for creating the Jewish state."[16] Amidst international protest, "the UN spokesman said [in his daily press conference] it was not the secretary-general's practice to comment on telegrams sent him by heads of government. He added that the secretary-general condemned any form of racial discrimination and genocide."[16]

Waldheim ran for a second term in the 1976 UN Secretary-General selection. However, China was still opposed to Waldheim and approached several Third World countries seeking challengers.[18] Outgoing Mexican President Luis Echeverría finally entered the race in October 1976, making Waldheim the only Secretary-General to face a contested re-selection campaign. Waldheim resoundingly defeated Echeverría in the first round of voting. China cast a single symbolic veto against Waldheim in the first round and voted for him in the second round, handing him an easy victory with 14 of 15 votes on the Security Council.[19]

Waldheim ran for an unprecedented third full term as Secretary-General in the 1981 selection. China was determined to unseat him this time and lined up a strong candidate in Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania. In the first round of voting, Waldheim lost to Salim by one vote. However, Salim was vetoed by the United States, while Waldheim was vetoed by China. The veto duel between China and the United States lasted a record 16 rounds. After six weeks of deadlock, Waldheim and Salim both withdrew from the race. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru won the selection and succeeded Waldheim as Secretary-General of the United Nations.[23]:411 The events of 1981 established a two-term limit on the office, and no Secretary-General since Waldheim has run for a third term.

Waldheim had unsuccessfully sought election as President of Austria in 1971, but his second attempt on 8 June 1986 proved successful. During his campaign for the presidency in 1985, what became known internationally as the "Waldheim affair" began. Before the presidential elections, investigative journalist Alfred Worm revealed in the Austrian weekly news magazine Profil that there had been several omissions about Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945 in his recently published autobiography.[24]

Waldheim had previously claimed to have received a medical discharge after being wounded in winter 1942. His aides at the United Nations even accused the Israeli mission of spreading rumors that he supported the Nazis. Israeli ambassador Yehuda Zvi Blum denied the charges, saying, "We don't believe Waldheim ever supported the Nazis and we never said he did. We have many differences with him, but that isn't one of them."[25]

Waldheim called the allegations "pure lies and malicious acts".[28] Nevertheless, he admitted that he had known about German reprisals against partisans: "Yes, I knew. I was horrified. But what could I do? I had either to continue to serve or be executed."[28] He said that he had never fired a shot or even seen a partisan.[28] His former immediate superior at the time stated that Waldheim had "remained confined to a desk".[28] Former Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, of Jewish origin, denounced the actions of the World Jewish Congress as an "extraordinary infamy",[28] adding that Austrians would not "allow the Jews abroad to ... tell us who should be our President."

Part of the reason for the controversy was Austria's refusal to address its national role in the Holocaust. (Many leading Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, were Austrians, and Austria became part of the Third Reich.) Austria refused to pay compensation to Nazi victims, and from 1970 onwards refused to investigate Austrian citizens who were senior Nazis.[29] Stolen Jewish art remained public property until after the Waldheim affair.[30]

Because the revelations leading to the Waldheim affair came shortly before the presidential election, there has been speculation about the background of the affair.

Declassified CIA documents show that the CIA had been aware of his wartime past since 1945.[31] Information about Waldheim's wartime past was also previously published by a pro-German Austrian newspaper, Salzburger Volksblatt, during the 1971 presidential election campaign, including the claim of an SS membership, but the matter was supposedly regarded as unimportant or even advantageous for the candidate at that time.[32]

According to several of Waldheim's obituarists, his wartime past and the discrepancies in his autobiography, In the Eye of the Storm, must have been known to both superpowers before he was elected UN Secretary General, and there were rumours that the KGB had blackmailed him during his UN time (for example here and here).[33]

In 1994, former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky claimed in his book The Other Side of Deception that Mossad doctored the file of the then UN Secretary General to implicate him in Nazi crimes. These allegedly false documents were subsequently "discovered" by Benjamin Netanyahu in the UN file and triggered the "Waldheim Affair". Ostrovsky says that this was motivated by Waldheim's criticism of Israel's war in Lebanon.[34] Controversy surrounds Ostrovsky because many of his revelations have not been sourced or otherwise confirmed, leading several critics to say that most of his work (including The Other Side of Deception) is fictional. Ostrovsky's service in Mossad was confirmed when the Israeli government unsuccessfully attempted to stop publication of the book.[35][36]

In view of the ongoing international controversy, the Austrian government decided to appoint an international committee of historians to examine Waldheim's life between 1938 and 1945. Their report found no evidence of any personal involvement in those crimes.[37] Although Waldheim had stated that he was unaware of any crimes taking place, the committee cited evidence that Waldheim must have known about war crimes.[38]

In response to Waldheim's denial that he knew about war crimes, Simon Wiesenthal stated that Waldheim was stationed 5 miles (8.0 km) from Thessaloniki while, over the course of several weeks, the Jewish community, which formed one-third of the population there, was sent to Auschwitz:

I could only reply what the committee of historians likewise made clear in its report: 'I cannot believe you.'[38]

Wiesenthal stated the committee found no evidence that Waldheim took part in any war crimes but was guilty of lying about his military record.[39] The International Committee in February 1988 concluded that he could not stop what was going on in Yugoslavia and Greece even if he knew:

In favour of Waldheim is, that he only had very minor possibilities to act against the injustices happening. Actions against these, depending on which level the resistance occurred, were of very different importance. For a young member of the staff, who did not have any military authority on the army group level, the practical possibilities for resistance were very limited and with a high probability would not have led to any actual results. Resistance would have been limited to a formal protest or on the refusal to serve any longer in the army, which would have seemed to be a courageous act, however would have not led to any practical achievement.[40]

On April 22, 1987, the United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of State announced that evidence amassed in an investigation conducted by the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) had established a prima facie case that Waldheim participated in Nazi-sponsored persecution during World War II and therefore that his entry into the United States was prohibited by federal statute.[41] The 232-page internal Department of Justice investigative report was released in 1994 by that agency, and it is available at the agency's website.[42] The report catalogues evidence that, the U.S. Government concluded, proved that Waldheim had taken part in, among other actions: the transfer of civilian prisoners to the SS for exploitation as slave labor; the mass deportation of civilians - including Jews from Greek islands and the town of Banja Luka, Yugoslavia - to concentration and death camps; the utilization of anti-Semitic propaganda; the mistreatment and execution of Allied prisoners; and reprisal executions of hostages and other civilians.

In his speech at the Cathedral, Federal President Heinz Fischer called Waldheim "a great Austrian" who had been wrongfully accused of having committed war crimes. Fischer also praised Waldheim for his efforts to solve international crises and for his contributions to world peace.[47] At Waldheim's own request, no foreign heads of states or governments were invited to attend his funeral except Hans-Adam II, the Prince of Liechtenstein. Also present was Luis Durnwalder, governor of the Italian province of South Tyrol. Japan and Syria were the only two countries that laid wreaths on his grave. Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, issued a message 'voicing sadness'.[48] In a two-page letter, published posthumously by the Austrian Press Agency the day after he died, Waldheim admitted making "mistakes" ("but these were certainly not those of a follower let alone an accomplice of a criminal regime") and asked his critics for forgiveness.[49]

As a much-heralded invited guest on Dame Edna Everage's talk show The Dame Edna Experience, a dignified "Kurt Waldheim" began a grand entrance, except that halfway down the staircase, he abruptly fell through a hidden chute and disappeared: the band's fanfare stopped as Dame Edna explained she had decided at the last minute to "abort" Dr. Waldheim's appearance because it would have been "too political". The episode aired 12 September 1987.

Musician Lou Reed's 1989 New York album contains a song called "Good Evening Mr. Waldheim."

Harry Turtledove's 2003 alternate history novel, In the Presence of Mine Enemies, in which Germany won the Second World War, a "Kurt Haldweim" is the third Führer of Germany, and parts of Haldweim's biography closely parallel Waldheim's. For instance, both Waldheim and Haldweim were born in Austria in 1918 and served in the Wehrmacht in Thessaloniki during World War II.

In a 1988 ice hockey film entitled Hockey, The Lighter Side, former New York Rangers goaltender John Davidson is explaining his fictional goaltender school, and as hockey highlights play, he exclaims, "You'll have more shots taken at you than Kurt Waldheim."

During the filming of Schindler's List, comedian Robin Williams cheered director Steven Spielberg with a spoof telemarketing call from "the Waldheimers Association, a society devoted to helping raise money to help older Germans who had forgotten everything before 1945."[52][53]

In an episode of The New Statesman, aired in 1989, Alan B'Stard (Rik Mayall) attempts to blackmail an aged former Nazi officer, who complains that, "it's not fair; I'm living here in the tripe capital of Europe, while Kurt Waldheim is President of Austria — and he was beneath me!"

American poet Srikanth Reddy's 2011 book Voyager presents a collection of poems and fragments created by erasing large sections of Waldheim's memoir In the Eye of the Storm.

In the 2015 fiction novel The Lady From Zagreb by Philip Kerr, the protagonist, Captain Bernie Gunther, encounters a young Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Kurt Waldheim while on a mission in Yugoslavia in 1942.

^Kandell, Jonathan (15 June 2007). "Kurt Waldheim". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 May 2010. Waldheim took part in, and was decorated for, Operation Kozara, a large-scale antipartisan operation involving mass reprisals – at the rate of 100 executions for every German killed – and mass deportations of Serb women and children to concentration camps.